


I Will Conceal

by DickWhitmansCat



Category: Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:05:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DickWhitmansCat/pseuds/DickWhitmansCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're not Lucy."</i>
  <br/>
  <i>"And you're not Benjamin Barker."</i>
</p><p>Sweeney's first night 'home', told from both sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. her side

He sits up there for hours, he does, like the last man haunting the platform, waiting for a train that's long since passed him by.

I spend these hours trying to act like nothing's happened, walking up and down the shop floor in a daze.  I try taking inventory of the very little I have left, but minutes pass and I'm left with a list full of words what don't exist.  There are only three words that make sense to me, and they ring out in my head like a bell -- _he's come home_.

\---

He slips in the door a good hour after nightfall, just as I've decided to draw myself a bath and leave him be.  We don't say much, him and me.  He nods at me, and I nod back, because what else do you do?  I go about my routine, and he follows me like my own shadow.  

I set a bite to eat on the table -- what little I have, seeing as I wasn't exactly expecting company.  We eat it in silence.  After a bit, I can't half stand it.  "I can't speak for you, love, but I need a bath."  He sort of grunts, and I leave him to his food and his darkness.

\---

I draw the bath and unlace myself.  Today's clothes get put in the basket, and I slip into the warm water, grateful for the warmth.  As I soak, my mind wanders to years ago.  That spring was on her best form when Benjamin Barker first appeared in my shop, what with his big warm eyes and his gorgeous smile.  My Albert had just died, bless him, and I was lonely and empty and cold.  We laughed and joked as he signed the paperwork, bundling it neatly for his solicitor.  Fate had newly made a fool of me, and I was ready to start afresh.  It felt like the time was right, and I was being given my chance.

And then the next morning, bright and early, he returned.  With his pretty doll of a wife.  My world might as well have crumbled then and there.

_You were a fool then_ , I think, pulling myself up out of the tub.  _And a fool you still are_.

\---

I pull on my tatty old dressing gown, the one I got right before Albert died, poor bugger.  My mother, she married for love, and it came back to bite her in the rump.  I promised myself I wouldn't be so silly.  I met Albert, who was harmless as they come, and richer, and I thought, _I can manage_.  So I did.  I didn't love him.  I liked him well enough.  Not so much in the way that counts, but what did I care?  He didn't hit me, he didn't care what I did with myself, and he had money.  More than that, he was eating himself to death.  So I bided my time.  Five years pass, and one morning, he's cold and still as a rock.

How was I to know he'd left his money to his nieces and nephews in the country?  I didn't.  And so I was left with nothing.  That is, until he turned up.

\---

I brush my hair and look at myself in the glass.  I'm nothing special, not really.  A young widow who looks older than her years.  Nothing that would make the papers.  

I step out into the parlor, where he sits.  He's reading one of Albert's old books, so he doesn't notice me.  Or, at least, I don't think he does.

"You ever hear the story of Odysseus?" he asks, not looking up from the book.

"Maybe once, at school," I say, feeling stupid.

"It took him years to return home," he says, voice soft and low.  "He endured all these trials and tribulations, all with the thought that when he returned, his wife and child would be waiting.  It would all be worth it, all that pain, all that distraction--"

Without thinking, I shift, and the dressing gown shifts too, leaving my leg bare for the world to see.  I take a deep breath, trying to think of what to say.  "Those distractions, though, they made him a better man, didn't they?"  I twist a lock of my hair round my finger, transfixed by the sight of him, so very close and so very real.  

He looks up, and my breath catches.  His eyes stay fixed on mine for a moment before moving down to my leg.  Something dark takes him over -- something raw and dangerous, like a wild dog what hasn't been fed for ages, and I remember.  I'm the first woman he's seen in fifteen years.  

I clear my throat.  "Well, darlin', I do believe I'm going to bed," I tell him, willing myself to add, "I've got more than plenty room for the both of us."  I turn and head down the hall, silently praying I wasn't making it all up.  The silence, it's too strong.  My mind can't help but fill in the gaps, because otherwise, I've got nothing.

\---

I reach my bedroom.  I light a candle.  The light cuts through the dark like a knife in butter.  I stare at myself in my vanity mirror and sigh in defeat.  

When I turn away, there he is in the doorway, fierce and feral.  "Thought you might not come," I say with a tilt of my head.

He strides toward me, looking at me all the while.  I feel my cheeks color.  I stay still, unsure whether I am the hunter or the hunted. 

"How long have you been wanting this?" he asks as he stares.

I start to tremble.  "Since you signed the lease, love," I whisper to him.  

He takes a few more steps until we are face to face, eye to eye.  I breathe in, all sharp-like.

"The distractions made him better," he whispers, reaching out to untie the dressing gown.  It slips open, and he slips his hand beneath the silk.  I gasp a little, because for as long as it's been for him, it's been even longer for me, and I need it more than life.  

He pushes me back to the bed, and I pull him down with me.  I start unbuckling, untying, undoing any bit I can reach, which is saying something, given what I'm going through.  He's stroking my belly, my tits, my back, all of me his fingers can find, and all the while he's scraping his teeth against my neck, my face.  His skin's smoother than I'd imagined, and I find myself giving up on undressing him to just touch him.  

His hair is thick and soft, and I bury my nose in it as I comb my fingers through.  "Welcome home, darlin'," I whisper, and I lose my grip on his hair as he slips down to lap and bite at my thighs.  I start speaking in tongues, begging him to take me, taste me, fuck me.  

He makes no bones about finishing where I left off, pulling off his waistcoat, his shirt, his tie, his trousers, his undergarments.  I glance at his feet, and they're bare.  Pretty quickly, so's the rest of him, and I can't help but purr at the sight.   

I lean my weight back onto my hands, and he crawls up to me, that same animal look in his eyes.  I pull his face in to kiss him, and his teeth catch on my lip.  It bleeds, and soon he's licking it right off.  I swipe my tongue over once he's done, and the metal taste of blood combined with the slick taste of me makes me dizzy.  

He grabs my wrists and pins my arms up against the headboard.  My jaw falls open at the nerve of it, and I squeak, but before I can say a word, he's pushed into me so hard I scream.  It's not a pretty sound.  He's growling and pushing, all the while I'm wriggling and shrieking this new name of his like my life depends on it, and finally I manage to use all of my strength to push him off my wrists and flat on his back.  I laugh in triumph, riding him faster and faster.  Finally, the quake rises from my toes, and before I can help it, the cry escapes my lips -- _Benjamin_.

He flips me over again, and as my pleasure ebbs to its numbed end, he releases, and with it comes the first word I've understood all the while, a word that freezes me to the core -- _Lucy_.  

He pulls out of me and climbs out of bed, disappearing down the hall.  Shaking my head, I stagger over to the vanity and blow out the candle.  I slide back into my bed and curl up under the covers, all cozy-like, but I'm far from cozy.  He returns after a bit and climbs in next to me.  We're facing opposite ways, but we might as well be staring each other in the face.

"You're not Lucy," he whispers, almost regretfully.

"And you're not Benjamin Barker," I say back to him.

"We won't be making that mistake again," he growls, and I am convinced he's going to get up and leave.  Instead, he turns and nuzzles his nose against my bare back before scraping his teeth against my shoulder.  I sigh, and turn back to touch him, to thank him, but he's rolled over and gone to sleep.  Sighing nice and heavy, I roll over and try to do the same.  I fail, but it never hurts to try.  Always been my motto, always will be.


	2. his side

I sit in this room, this dank, fetid hole with all its streaks and shadows, and I stare.  At the city, at the smoke billowing from houses and factories alike, poisoning the air.  I clutch my razors, the only pure part of my old life left.  My friends.  I send a silent prayer out to that empty, filthy sky -- _bring me absolution, or destroy me here and now_.

\---

The dark does not change, and neither does my mood.  I retire downstairs to find her waiting for me.  It's not expectant, nor is it born of loyalty.  No, she seems to be doing precisely what she wants to be doing, and it sends a wave of shock coursing through me.  When you've spent years of your life incarcerated, living according to the whims of your captors, such shameless freedom seems like downright blasphemy.  I can't place the feeling echoing at the pit of my stomach.  

She sets out food, and we eat.  I don't know what to say to her.  She seems to know everything -- she knows every last detail of my past, and she seems to have mapped out my present as well.  I am unnerved by the extent to which she manages to predict my very instincts.  

She leaves me to my devices.  I take the first book I manage to touch off the shelf and sit.

Homer's "Odyssey".  How fitting.

A ribbon marks the spot where someone -- not her, from the notes on the pages -- stopped reading.  Odysseus is the captive of the nymph Calypso, who takes him as her lover and slave.  I read a note in the margins:  'Calypso, from the Greek;  meaning -- 'I will conceal'.  A shudder wracks my frame, and I close my eyes, murmuring what I've read to myself.  _I will conceal_.

\---

I hear her enter, though I can't bring myself to look up from the illustration of Odysseus staring at the sea.  I mention the book, as an opening to actual words being exchanged.  She doesn't seem interested.  I shut the book and look up.

She's wearing a threadbare excuse for a dressing gown, and my eyes are drawn to her leg, which she none too subtly slips out for my inspection.  It's in this moment that truth reasserts itself for me once again.  She is a woman, I remember, and given her behavior, her attitude, her eagerness, the final piece falls into place -- _she wants me._

In that eerie way of hers, she seems to sense my thoughts and heads off toward her room.  I weigh the present against the past.  I've not touched a woman since I was ripped from Lucy's side all those years ago.  

I've not touched another woman in my life.

My body and my conscience are at war.  Lucy haunts my every thought, my every movement, but my basest instinct is to give in and let go.

I know that I should not succumb.  I remove my shoes and consider sleeping in her parlor for the night.  The shop can double as my quarters once it's been readied, but for now, I have no other choice.

I sit back and silently beg the dark to swallow me whole.

As if to mock me, a light begins to flicker at the end of the hall.  I know that somehow, somewhere, I will pay for my actions, but given the penance I've done for another's crimes, I shan't hold back any longer.  The animal within must be sated, and blood will not suffice.  I creep down the hallway, toward the siren's light.

She stands with her back to me.  Sensing my presence, she turns.  The dressing gown has slipped somewhat, and the chalky white flesh exposed is enough to render me a beggar.  I am the animal within, however, and begging is not an option.  An animal takes.  I move in, right and ready.

What little is left of the rational being I was before makes itself known.  I ask her how long she's wanted me -- not _if_ , for the predatory glint in her eyes confirms that.  Since I signed the lease, she says.  That means--

 _Seventeen years_.   

Something in that revelation stuns and shakes me deeper than I care to consider.   Words fail me, leaving me to respond purely with touch and taste.  I untie her dressing gown and start to touch her, unbidden.  Her skin is cold.  At first she trembles, but as I skim with the tips of my fingers, she relaxes.  

It's not enough.  I push her towards the bed, and she pulls me down.  Now completely bare, the vicious little tart starts to undress me.  I can't abide the loss of control, so I descend upon all that I can lick, bite, and scratch, distracting her.  For the briefest of moments, the thought occurs to me -- _it was never like this, before._ She's busying herself with my hair, whispering and cooing, and it's too much for me to bear.  I must regain control.

I dip down to distract her further, licking my way up her thighs, teasing.  She moans a string of curses, practically in tears. _That's right, you wicked bint, you miserable whore, beg for it._

To add insult to injury, I finish undressing myself.  She leans back and watches, eyes darker than pitch.  The approval I see is enough for me to want to mollify her somewhat, so I crawl in and we kiss properly.  It doesn't feel right, somehow.  I roughen it a bit as I pull away, drawing blood from her lips.  I lap at the cut, and the taste makes me grin.  The beast has finally taken hold.  

I take hold of her and push in, trapping her hands over her head.  I fuck her hard, and she screams and whimpers my name with each thrust.  The control arouses me more than the particulars, and ever the clairvoyant, she turns the tables just as I realize it.  She slams me onto my back, riding me swiftly to her release, when she says it -- _Benjamin_.

I am incensed at the sound of it.  _Benjamin Barker is dead, you fool._ I feel the urge to cry, to hit her, to respond somehow -- so instead I flip her over and my muscles crest, bringing with it guilt and shame, and I send an apology out to my dead Lucy, whose forgiveness I crave but do not deserve.  

I pull out of her, disgusted.  I clamber down the hall to the washroom and stare at myself in the glass.  _Benjamin Barker is dead._ I wash my face and return to the bedroom, which is now completely dark.  I resume my place in bed beside her.  She won't face me.  I think she may understand far better than I realized.

"You're not Lucy," I whisper, and it's an afterthought, really.

"And you're not Benjamin Barker," she replies, and for a moment, I pity the poor creature.

The pity's enough to dull my guilt, and so I mumble something about mistakes and touch her again.  She relaxes, and I take it as acceptance.  Exhausted, broken, and far from slaked, I give in to the only escape I have left -- dark, dreamless sleep. 


End file.
